Natural Works of Art: Agate in the Home

With all of the natural looking materials available today – faux-marble tiles, wood-look vinyl, porcelain designed to look like a host of pricier substances – it’s getting easier to design a home that looks opulent (if not exactly like “the real thing”). Sometimes, we are so inundated by look-alikes that we’ve forgotten what nature looks like.
One of the rarer natural materials available is agate. The multifaceted semiprecious gemstone is frequently backlit for show-stopping results.

Agate is popular as an accent in bathrooms, kitchens and bars:

It’s also found less frequently in other areas of the home:

Can you believe that these are all natural? It’s incredible.

If you don’t mind going the impostor route, there are lots of more affordable options that are exquisitely similar to the real thing.

These are Fiandre tiles designed to mimic natural agate:

A long, spirited discussion on Houzz (is it tile? is it a massive slab?) ended with the revelation that the “agate” featured in this photo is actually a printed wall panel: